Page:Theory and Practice of Handwriting.djvu/52

Rh minutes. This ratio is about the same as that shown in the figure namely 3 or 4 to 5.

From the printed Report of the Vienna Commission the figures were slightly different, "the best verticals were 1/5 sooner or quicker than the best slopers." These experiments in Vienna were conducted by Drs. Schubert, Bayr and others.

Such a slight variance in the ratios may be and probably is owing to the short time the verticals have been writing that style. It is hardly just to institute a comparison between boys say of 15 on the one hand who have written sloping all their lives and those who of the same age have written vertically only one or two years of that period. When classes in the upper standards (the 5th or 6th year of school life) that have written vertically from the first are available, then and only then can an impartial and fair test be prescribed. Nevertheless, when under the conditions, which to Vertical writers are so unusually severe, Upright Penmanship is able to establish its superiority as to speed by a ratio of 4 to 5 or 5 to 6, the ultimate advantage to be gained by adopting the vertical system cannot be for a moment called in question.

Vertical writing speaks for itself so palpably and so emphatically in this respect that it is unnecessary to linger long on the question. The sprawling, straggling scribble so common in the oblique style becomes compact and characteristic—full of individuality—in the upright. Let anyone try the experiment for himself. After repeated and various comparisons of Copy Book headlines it is ascertained that for the same or similar sized writing the vertical will yield from 30 to 60 per cent, more matter in the same space-length. Several books being tested page by page the surprising disclosure was made that where the sloping gave 20 to 25 the upright supplied 35 to 40 letters. A glance at the reduced facsimile (Fig. 14) of an ordinary page in the Upright Penmanship Copy Books will convince anyone of the advantage to be secured in space and compactness by the adoption of that system of